This article develops a gendered state-theoretical materialist framework to show how capitalism as an economic system and the nation-state reproduce gendered hierarchies on multiple levels. With a focus on the symbolic masculine cultural order and its hegemonic political rationality of governing, the current economic crisis and its effects on gender regimes is discussed more specifically. In a …
This paper develops a theoretical critique of the varieties of capitalism (VoC)approach from the perspective of ideas sourced from Marxian political economy.In particular, the concept of economic surplus as formulated by Paul Baran is used to question the social ontology implicit in VoC, which, it is argued, is severely constrained by its imprecise definitions of both capitalism itself and capi…
Our article focuses on a question that is at the core of comparative capitalisms (CC) scholarship and historical materialist state theory: What is an appropriate theory of institutions in capitalism? How can we conceptualise institutions in relation to the fundamental contradictions and power relations of capitalism? Starting from the social foundations of institutions, the aim of this article …
This article critiques the institutionalist literature on varieties of capitalism and the more regulationist comparative capitalisms approach. It elaborates the alternative concept of variegated capitalism and suggests that this can be studied fruitfully through a synthesis of materialist form analysis and historical institutionalism within a world-market perspective. It highlights the role of …
A number of scholars have criticised the methodological nationalism of the mainstream study of capitalist diversity for ignoring a global convergence trend triggered by global competition. This contribution agrees with this criticism but insists on the need to take the diversities into account in order to understand the dependence of capital on the geographical concreteness of living labour and…
This paper develops a notion of ‘local capitalisms’. Starting from a particular, Marxist theorisation of capitalism and of the state, local capitalism is analysed as a nexus of production, reproduction of people, and the state within a locality. The latter construct, and are constructed by, specific relations of class, gender, ethnicity and age, themselves internally related. On this basis …
This article engages critically with an emerging Brazilian research programme,varieties of Kapitalism and development in Latin America’, a perspective which seeks to ascertain the institutional chances of, and limits to, the implementation of state-led ‘national development strategies’. Adopting a critical political economy viewpoint, the text discusses the deficiencies inherent in this …
This introduction to the special issue focuses on the rise to dominance in debates on capitalist diversity of approaches which take institutions as their starting point, rather than the wider social relations in which institutions sit and are constituted by. However, although this is part of broader trends across the social sciences over the last three decades, the self-marginalisation of criti…
Over time, the comparative analysis of capitalism has moved beyond the strict confines of the narrow varieties of capitalism (VoC) framework. In this sense, it is possible to observe an emergent post-VoC discussion that goes beyond the static design and methodological nationalism that can be found in a strictly comparative and institutionalist account of capitalism. So far, however, the post-Vo…
This paper agrees with much of the current criticism, especially from Marxist perspectives, which argues that the varieties of capitalism (VoC) approach overemphasises the degree of harmony and mutual benefit, as well as the absence of class tension and exploitation, within contemporary capitalist relations. It also, however, criticises many of these Marxist critiques on the grounds that they t…
This article seeks to elaborate a framework for the study of diversity in forms of labour using Trotsky’s theory of uneven and combined development (UCD). It argues that labour markets are constituted by systemic processes of capital accumulation and uneven development in the global economy, but that these processes have highly differentiated outcomes in terms of the forms of labour that…
This paper argues that one strong and still largely uncontested theoretical heritage of mainstream approaches to capitalist diversity, and particularly the varieties of capitalism framework, is the binding of labour’s agency to national institutions and (cultural and ‘mental’) ‘paths’. This has been the main paradigm within political and trade union debates, too, especially in Germany…
This article elaborates a theory of combined and uneven development that takes the dimensions of spatiality, labour and institutions seriously. Drawing on this conceptual framework, an account is given of the way the 2007–2008 crisis was inflected in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. The integration of these countries with the global economy has taken place in different ways throug…
The article charts the continuing attempt to breathe fresh life into the original Hall and Soskice distinction between liberal market economies (LMEs) and coordinated market economies (CMEs). It surveys the critique of that original formulation from within the dominant ‘varieties of capitalism’ paradigm, and the recent attempt by Wolfgang Streeck to replace the LME-CME focus with a new …
In this paper, we critically assess two of the key conceptual foundations for the comparative capitalisms (CC) literatures, neo-pluralist political science and economic sociology, in order to identify more clearly the deep intellectual roots of these literatures. Principally, we focus on how the strengths of neo-pluralism and economic sociology – their attention to detail in considering t…